I just published 'Tarn & Beck: The Dinner Party', Part Nine of the Tarn & Beck series. It's been a little difficult working on it.
I started it out as a Sherlock Holmes story from first perspective, my first time seriously using first perspective for a story. After working with first perspective, it's not my favorite narrative style, as I prefer third perspective.
I kept at it, though, even as the story turned out to be shorter than expected. I decided to continue on working in first perspective, though, expanding the story by adding in another story idea that I'd planned to try out.
The Dinner Party is the second story, and I had a notion about it before. Most of my Tarn and Beck story ideas, I've listed them out as notions I wanted to try, narrative tropes I wanted to experiment with.
Some I've held onto for years, trying to figure out which order I might portray them in. I've also shifted a few of these story ideas around, as Martin and Patricia and Eric the Relic Collector and his crew have appeared.
So some Tarn & Beck story ideas are actually going to be played out, hopefully, by these other characters. I've been working on the Sherlock Holmes story and the Dinner Party story for months now, even though it's a novella.
While I wrote, finished, and published several other novels and stories, I had this one on the back burner. I kept coming back to it, ever since I finished The Unicorn Foil in January, though it's difficult, not just in narrative style, but in subject matter, too.
I was trying out different approaches and genres in this story, and then I got distracted by other story ideas and novels. Since April or May, I've written two books under a pseudonym involving guys, and published them. Those two books have been more successful than my other books.
So it hasn't been a good year for Tarn & Beck. I'm not going to write out a Christmas Tales for them this year, as there isn't enough time left. I rushed a little to get this out before Halloween and I need a short break from Tarn & Beck.
I've got other ideas I want to work on, like a Larkin story that's a sequel to The Fairy Godmother's Daughter, sequels to my pseudonym books, a sequel to Wander-land and Survivors of Corrica.
I want to work on Arria, but that's up in the air still. I'll probably do more Tarn & Beck sometime next year.
But I'm also considering that maybe I'll finish up the Tarn & Beck series, maybe in a few more stories, or one or two. I could move some story ideas around to other characters, and maybe start a new story in that fantasy setting. Hopefully something will come up.
Thanks for reading.
